HUBRIS
by Dark K. Sly
Summary: He wouldn't say he had lost the love of his life – it couldn't be called love if half their interactions were built on death threats, and the other half in saving each other's life – but it could have been. IMPLIED ONE SIDED STEREK. Stiles.Lydia


I hope this tides you guys over till I have time enough to write a proper chapter for my WIPs!

And this is an early Christmas Present for Agata, dear! Happy Christmas, twin!

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HUBRIS

Derek knew there were stupid people in the world – he just never thought he was one of them. He started to reassess his self-image, though, when he finally realized what he had done by shunning Stiles from his pack.

**X**

The list of things that could go wrong between them was so extensive that Derek got tired just by thinking about it. He was human, for one. A boy for another. A really _young_ boy of sixteen, loud and obnoxious, and he never really knew when to give up. He was adorable – even if Derek would deny forever and a day that he had _ever_ even _thought_ the word about a human being. It was just much easier to make him go away than to actually work through any of that.

**X**

He never really counted on Jackson leaving, though.

**X**

The Alpha Pack was dangerous enough that, after the first time he had his ass kicked to hell and back, Scott had submitted to him, and admitted they were pack. The one condition was keeping Stiles away from all the mess.

**X**

If he was honest with himself, he had _never_ thought Scott would find a way for Stiles to listen to him. Of course that the one time Derek wanted him to be an incompetent, Scott wasn't.

**X**

They didn't really need human allies against the Alpha Pack, and Lydia wanted nothing to do with werewolves anymore, seeing as Jackson had been saved by her and then left town, promising never to come back. It took Derek a while to connect the dots of how all those things would come back to bite him in the ass very, very soon.

**X**

It wasn't so much unrequited as it was unacknowledged. He was into Stiles. The way he moved, the way his eyes always seemed to see a whole lot more than even him, who was a wolf and had all kinds of better senses, the way the kid tried really hard not to take shit from anyone. He just figured he would always have time – time was the only thing he had actually had ever since the fire.

**X**

He really should have learned that nothing in his life would go as he planned.

**X**

When Jackson left, Lydia started resenting werewolves even more than she did before. They had messed with her life, put her in danger, put her in a comma, made her find out she was not exactly normal or average, made her disappear naked in the woods, made her into a puppet bringing dead werewolves back to life – and, most of all, made her start to hate Jackson, someone she thought she'd love forever.

When Scott told Stiles no one wanted him in the fight because he was too weak, Stiles thought about protesting, but he was a tiny bit broken by then. By Gerard's torture, by his dad's disappointment, by Scott's abandonment, by Derek's disregard, by Lydia and Jackson's love – by the world.

When they met for the first time after the night in the warehouse, Lydia had a cold look on her face, and Stiles looked just about ready to cry.

It was strangely fitting, somehow.

**X**

It was Lydia who reached out first, because she was something of a force of nature. She wouldn't be stopped by her jerk of ex-boyfriend leaving, she wouldn't be deterred from happiness by something as ridiculous as werewolves. So she called Stiles, and they talked for hours. He called her after that, and they met for coffee.

She kissed him first too, and for the first time in weeks, he smiled.

**X**

None of them knew that, on the night Stiles was over at her house watching Doctor Who for the first time, the whole pack was out in a fight with the Alphas. They almost lost, but in the end, they didn't.

Derek actually thought maybe he didn't have to wait until Stiles was eighteen to try and do something about them.

Scott was a bit relieved that he would be able to count on Stiles again.

They really didn't realize that life goes on for humans just as much as it goes for werewolves.

**X**

Lydia was the one who saw the call from Scott on Stiles's phone, and asked him about it. He told her he didn't feel like talking to him just yet, and she let it go.

From time to time she'd ask if he didn't miss his best friend, and he said that, yes, he did. He missed _Scott_. He didn't miss the bit of a jerk whom he had become after meeting Allison or becoming a werewolf – Stiles honest to God didn't know what had made the change.

Lydia got it, as she did most things, and didn't bring it up again. Instead, she confessed she used to be a fan of Star Trek, but wasn't really into it anymore.

They had a Star Wars/Ryan Gosling movie marathon on that weekend, over at Stiles's house, because his dad was out, her mom was travelling, and they were trying to compromise.

A lesson Lydia was starting to learn very slowly.

Stiles was a good teacher, though.

**X**

When Scott couldn't reach Stiles that summer, Derek thought about going to the boy's house. Do it like he always did, through the window in the middle of the night. Creepy as hell, but Stiles seemed to get a kick out of it, even if he kept on saying he was having a heart attack.

Lydia was occupying half the bed, her head on Stiles's pale chest, his hands on her naked back.

He could have sworn her eyes were open for a moment, but he was running away way too fast to be sure.

**X**

So that was the end of it, apparently.

**X**

They were normal.

Lydia graduated as Valedictorian, because she didn't have to hold back to make Stiles feel better. He thrived in having someone like her by his side. He could focus better with her help, and they were both accepted into Stanford, early acceptance, when their time came.

Her popularity came back because that was the kind of person she was, and it didn't hurt that she wasn't as much of a bitch as she had been before. She and Allison never actually went back to being friends, and that had something to do with the way Stiles would always eye the brunette with a twinge of discomfort, if only because of her last name.

He was never the Captain of the Lacrosse team, but it was a close thing. With no Boyd and no Jackson, with Scott out of the team because of his grades, and Isaac not playing because Peter thought it would draw way too much attention, he had a fair shot at being first line, and Lydia cheering him on could only help.

He never replaced Jackson, be it with Lydia or Danny or any of the other guys from the team, because Stiles was way too much _himself_ to become a replacement. He wasn't stunningly beautiful, he didn't drive a Porsche, and he wasn't a douchebag by default.

However, he was Lydia's boyfriend, a good player, a great student, and a trouble maker.

It was enough that he could make his way into a new life for himself.

**X**

His father was incredibly relieved when in his Junior and Senior years at school, not even once did Stiles show up at a crime scene. When Melissa tried to talk to the Sheriff about how Scott was miserable without Stiles, the man had to tell her that his son was fine.

For so long he had thought Stiles was the bad influence.

How wrong he thought himself then.

**X**

Derek, being Derek, never refused to let himself feel some pain.

He went to their wedding.

She was in a greenish white dress. Her red hair done up with strands loose, and her make up light, as she smiled brightly walking down the aisle, her arm in the Sheriff's, because she didn't want her father there. Stiles was smiling blissfully looking at her, the happiest man on earth on that moment, broad shouldered, tall and proud, hair longer than it used to be in those times when they knew each other and saved each other's lives.

They never really moved from Beacon Hills. They never broke away from their families – and if they did, as Lydia's scorn for her own father in this ceremony was any indication, it wasn't enough to make them stay away during Christmas and Thanksgiving and Easter and Summer holidays, new friends with them every few days, growing stronger and more confident in themselves as the days passed by.

They stayed.

They were graduated now, and they were staying.

Derek would watch them build a life and have kids. Grow old together, build a family around them.

Be happy.

And he would see.

He wouldn't say he had lost the love of his life – it couldn't be called love if half their interactions were built on death threats, and the other half in saving each other's life – but it could have been.

The sweetest life falling apart by her bright smile and his adoringly gaze.

Happy ever after – not for him.

He was never the prince in his own story, anyway.

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Hope you liked it! Happy ending for Stiles, yay!  
Let me know what you think!  
REVIEW!


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